


Crows and broken glass

by Oh_Why_Brain



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Magic, Other, alternative universe, astro au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 06:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oh_Why_Brain/pseuds/Oh_Why_Brain
Summary: Magic users are monsters.Magic users learn the rules young or thy don't make it past young.





	Crows and broken glass

_1\. Magic is bad._

You can hear the crows outside cawing, ambulance siren blares in the distance. Hurried sound of feet and then a scream. She saw the feathers floating all around you. Screamed and dropped the glass of water, because magic is bad. It shattered, flooding her socks but she didn’t seem to care. The scream was never-ending and all you wanted was for her to be quiet so you moved off the bed and towards the screaming 5 year old. The feathers followed, without you telling them to. They stuffed up her mouth, making her choke. You panicked and more glass shattered- your window and mirror, sharp pieces of glass propelling themselves towards you. The scars on your cheeks are the last thing you and your sister would ever have in common. Magic users should be punished. They made you change your name. Family and given. Not that it mattered, nobody ever spoke to you anymore. You sat by yourself during meals and walked yourself to school. They screamed when they saw your hands covered in sneaking black lines, proof of the magic poisoning your system. Magic sometimes backfired, filling your veins with vile colouring them black.

_2\. You wear gloves after using magic._

Everything takes its toll. Making your morning run smooth used to make your hands as black as crow’s feathers, leaving you exposed for the whole world to see. But you didn’t stop. The tales said it would get easier, better. You practice turning feathers into flowers and healing small cuts. Eventually you can make your breakfast cook before you even open your eyes properly and your veins only turn darker blue. Still you wear the gloves that reach up to your elbows everyday.

_3\. Nothing good ever came from magic. You should just die._

Gloves are out of fashion. Your normally pale hands are pitch black. Not just the veins, your whole hands looks like you dipped them in black ink because you had worked too hard. You try not to think about whats hiding underneath the sweater-paws that you have adopted instead of gloves. You think instead about the child and the parents that came to you crying and left smiling and holding hands.

 

_4\. Nobody will ever show you kindness, because you are a monster._

“Excuse me?” a voice breaks you out of thought. Deep and friendly. You lift your gaze to find a police officer standing in front of you. Your heart clenches and the rest of his words are drowned out, because you are burning every other sound into your memory. This is how you die, after all, might as well enjoy everything about your last moments. You hear crows cawing, ambulance sirens in the distance and stomping of feet as people rush by, living their lives untainted by magic. Your eyes slip down and your shock is gone as fast as it appeared. The officer is holding a silky scarf- red and creamy, just like the one you wore this morning… your hand reaches towards your own neck without you telling it to. There’s no scarf. Your sleeves fall down revealing your black hand and you are panicking again. You look into his eyes pleading silently. His eyes never leave yours holding up the scarf and draping it over your hand. The black is hidden and the officer is leaving without you saying a word to him. You see him in your dreams for the rest of the week. Each day more and more details come back- the way his hair fell into his eyes, the way his voice sounded, the little smile he wore before you carelessly showed your hand. Eventually you even remember exactly what he said, though you didn’t pay attention. You burn the memory into glass square and wrap it in the scarf. It lives inside your vanity now. A happy place. Your hands do not get black this time.

_5\. Nobody will ever care._

The bell above the door chimes quietly. You let your customers come forward without a greeting. It adds a touch of mystery and you know people show up for the theatrics as much as for the spells. The whole shop is bathed in soft light that could be candles. It’s just cheap lightbulbs. Your feet are resting on the table, hair sticking out in every direction imaginable. Your eyes are skimming along a page of a book bound in red leather. You hear somebody clear their throat but you hold up a finger. Here you needn’t hide your hands. Here you are in charge. When you turn your heart stops for a couple of beats. The smile. The hair falling into soft brown eyes. He isn’t wearing a uniform now. You force yourself to come back to the land of the living and ask what he wants. He flinches a little bit at your tone. A crow caws outside.

_6\. Magic users are incapable of love._

He comes back once a month. The crows have stopped answering your heart whenever he makes it skip a beat. His visits seem to measure time for you eventually. It’s been a year and you now know more than you ever wanted about this police officer. He had you make a good luck charm for his clumsy mother and despite yourself you made two right on the spot and insisted that he carry it in his uniform from now on.

You learned the slow way he spoke over tea you started preparing on his sixth visit. It was horrible outside. Your hands were black by the time the tea was done and poured. He didn’t seem to mind, just kept on telling you about a teenager he met while investigating domestic dispute case. You see him cry on his thirteenth visit. It breaks your heart and you bring his dog back to life. Before you can see a happy smile spread on his lips the world goes black. The black didn’t leave your hands for a week and you didn’t care.

_7\. Nobody will ever love you._

He comes weekly now and you stopped counting. Sometimes the dog comes along and you fight the smile as he baby-talks it into sitting obediently while you two sip tea and discuss his latest case. He finally asks your name. You freeze for a moment before giving him the name you were born with, that nobody could give or take. The one crows and ghosts and everything magic called you on moonlit nights. You no longer long for the approval or love of your parents. The name that always sounded like a threat, when whispered by beings from beyond the veil sounds like music when he says it. Your happy place no longer lives only inside your vanity. It is no longer just an image burned into glass for you to remember.

_8\. You should just die._

You stare at the list written at the beginning of your spell-book. You can’t tell if you wrote it yourself anymore.

You should just die. The words aren’t just the end of a running list in your head anymore.

You don’t need glass squares to see the fear that bloomed on his face. You watch the black consume your fingers and move past your wrists as you chant and flick your hands about. This will be the last time. Your vision tunnels long before you are ready. Your hands barely twitch anymore as you erase every last shred of evidence of your life from the world.

They were right. The shop is too much. You settle for knocking every single bottle of oil down. They combine into sickeningly sweet smell and you spark it up with your fingers. The heat hurts your face. You use the last of your power to light the note scribbled with a too dull of a pencil on fire. It will travel where it needs to. You are sure of that much at least. Wether it will help anything, you cannot tell. You fallback onto the chair you used to sip tea in and let the heat and darkness swallow you.

_Officer Park Jinwoo was found unconscious an apparent victim of magic attack early Sunday morning. The officer has been transported to hospital immediately and has regained consciousness, though he seems to have suffered severe memory loss. The police precinct are offering a reward for any information regarding the attack which is believed to have happened late Saturday night._

“Mr Park how are you feeling today?” the psychiatrist sat comfortably in her chair. The man across from her seemed fine, if a little lost. He seemed to remember everything except for the person who attacked him. “Do you want to try recounting the night to me?” the doctor asks and the patient seems upset.

“I remember walking in the park. I know I wasn’t alone. There was…” he stops and digs through his hair. “I remember crows. I’ve never seen so many crows in one place.” his eyes seem to be looking at something that’s not in the room.

“Yes you have told me all this before. Anything else come back to you?” the doctor is bored of this story.

“A name. Woon.” he answers and the doctor just nods quietly. She doesn’t write it down, because it’s the exact same thing the officer told her during their first session.

“This was found with you.” she pulls out her last card hoping for some new information. Otherwise this sensational man will be released and out of her reach. He takes the paper from her, studies it carefully. The hand that wrote out the message must’ve been shaking it’s barely legible.

**_Magic is more than crow feathers and black hands. I know that now._ **

There is no signature.

He sits back, eyes focused on the piece of paper and says nothing. Outside the doctors window a crow caws. Ambulance sirens blare as it rushes to save somebody’s life. Feet hurry along the corridor behind the door. No glass shatters and no feathers fly.

Image flickers in his mind- red and cream scarf, light scar on a cheek and a black hand.

It means nothing.

It means so much.

It means magic.

He never captures that image again.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on tumblr -->black-dog-mafia


End file.
